#1703 - 13¢ Winter Pastime Plate Block - lettering 3/4 mm below
In 1976 the U.S. Post Office chose an 1855 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier as the subject for the Christmas design. The Bureau of Engraving & Printing had installed a state of the art 8-color "Combination Press", capable of printing multicolor gravure and engraving together on a continuous web of paper. They decided to test the gravure portion of this new press on a portion of the printing of this stamp. Due to the minor differences between the stamps printed on the new press and those printed on the gravure press that had been in use for several years, collectors discovered two versions of this stamp.
The Combination Press utilized small printing plates that were only 7 stamps high, which meant that in a sheet 10 stamps high, the plate numbers would begin to repeat after 7 stamps. Since the sheets were printed in a continuous web. they were sliced every 10 rows without the top and bottom selvage usually found on sheets of stamps. As a result, the plate numbers – and there were 5 plates used for this stamp – would "float" on the sheet, appearing in various positions from sheet to sheet. Because of this unusual format, collectors decided to save this issue as a large plate block of 20, preserving the complete 10 rows of plate markings. (US #1703 plate block of 20)
